What Kind Of City Do We Want To Live In?

The reasons people choose/use different transport modes are complex, often sensitive and controversial – how about parking??

As advocates for active transport, and safe streets our messaging doesn’t have to be about bikes or cycling, skooting, or even walking.

We can focus our discussion on the type of city in which we all want to live.

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If we want to enable more people to engage in active transport, micromobility and transit we cannot afford to have a war with the same people whose hearts and minds we’re trying to win.

Driving a private car has become completely normalized and often unquestioned as the primary choice of transport.  But as more and more people are beginning to question it, we can encourage curiosity and interest, not put them in a position of defensiveness.

People who drive exclusively often have never experienced the joy, and health benefits of riding a bike or walking instead of driving.

Other people have no choice and ride bikes or walk because they don’t own cars.

So we must encourage our city leaders of the worthiness of designing road environments and public spaces for purposes and functions for everyone.

It’s about enabling movement of people and goods in various different modes of transport, including motor vehicles. It’s also about creating places where people can linger.

Local councils across the country are working toward implementing a framework to make more liveable cities.

Asbury Park can do it too.

Read the full article in StreetsBlog USA.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/11/02/opinion-the-challenge-and-necessity-of-getting-drivers-to-see-the-light/

 

 

 

Car Blindness – A Curable Condition

The industry has systematically blinded us since the 1920s, and many drivers and city leaders passionately defend the condition.  Even though cars are literally killing us, it’s common to hear and read about drivers, business owners, delivery services, and emergency service providers arguing against proposed bike lanes and other infrastructure for micromobility (the ongoing fights in NYC about bike lanes reducing parking, and constant bashing of e-scooters), and complaints about insufficient parking.  The onus is placed on the most vulnerable road users for their own safety, with programs aimed at walkers and bicyclists suggesting (or mandating) hi-viz gear, flags, eye contact, of course helmets for all bike riders, and staying within painted lines. Drivers are routinely absolved of responsibility by law enforcement and journalists in crashes involving people on bikes or walking, because the person wasn’t wearing a helmet or wasn’t in the bike lane or crosswalk (as if a helmet will prevent being hit by a car, or that paint magically protects bike riders and walkers – did you know that jaywalking is fake?).  APCSC is thankful for Asbury Park city leaders who envision streets that prioritize people, not cars. This is a process that will take time as it has in cities all over the world, but Asbury Park is truly becoming a people-oriented city.

“This is the first in a series of four articles discussing car blindness. For cities around the world, more urgency is needed to enable sustainable, efficient, and healthy transport.”

Car blindness — Ignoring the true cost of cars

Alex Dyer Aug 24

Car blindness

Car blindness is the mindset of not seeing that cars themselves are a major, chronic problem. It is when one overlooks the heavy price tag of driving cars and is unable to see the precariousness of car dependency.

A symptom of car blindness is being convinced that by fixing one or two problems, cars will finally make sense.

Maybe by changing how they‘re powered will fix them? Or maybe making them a tiny bit less dangerous? Or making non-dangerous road users, like cyclists, more visible? Or adding another lane to a highway, or tunnel through a city?

Read more of this article:

Car Blindness

And read the following articles in the series:

Scooters Make Parking Easier in Asbury Park

Over 35,000 people attended the huge Sea.Hear.Now music festival. There was no parking allowed anywhere near the venue, and visitors found ways to get there, parking off site (way off site!), riding thousands of bikes, scooters, jitneys, walking, or using car-share.

The problem in cities all over the US isn’t lack of parking, it’s #toomanycars. Micromobility can solve the problem, in addition to banning cars from city centers entirely, making cities safer/saving lives, and improving business, by creating a people centered environment.

From Alexandria, VA to Barcelona and beyond, the newest microbility option is scooters. Improved infrastructure on streets for bikes and scooters is making Asbury Park a world-class, people-centric city.

Here’s why it’s now easier to find parking in Asbury

Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Parking areas for the orange e-scooters in Asbury Park are typically located on sidewalks or other areas off the street in order not to take up increasingly hard-to-find parking spaces for cars.

In a survey of scooter riders, 33% said they would have used their car if not for the program, which is how officials arrived at the estimate for car-trips avoided. And 31% said they had not ridden a bicycle in at least a year, meaning the scooter program is not displacing bike use, at least not among many riders.

While the booming waterfront is Asbury’s most congested and parking-starved area, Manzella noted that e-scooters are intended for, and used by, people throughout the city. That includes the west side, where real estate development, tourism and other economic activity has lagged far behind the city’s waterfront and downtown restaurant district.

Read more…

https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2019/10/finding-parking-in-asbury-is-getting-easier-you-can-thank-e-scooters-for-that.html

Is Your City Too Car-Friendly?

Question: Among our readers, who, like me learned to drive at a time when we were taught that pedestrians had the right of way? I was taught when I was behind the wheel that I had the awesome right and responsibility to drive a huge metal engine-powered machine, and I had to look out for those more vulnerable on the road. Things seem to have changed. Right now we can see daily reports from cities everywhere of drivers involved in hit and run, and other fatal crashes with people walking and riding bikes, in which drivers are getting away with “failure to yield”, or “reckless driving”. (Police reports say: “She came out of nowhere.”  “I didn’t see him.” Or even more ridiculous, “He/she wasn’t wearing a helmet.”)

We’re in the midst of a crisis of an health crisis of vaping. There have been 13 fatalities to date, and may be more to come. It’s a serious problem and it’s in the news every day.  But we don’t see a similar response to car crash deaths that occur daily by the hundreds and yearly by tens of thousands! The National Safety Council (NSC) estimates that in 2018, 40,000 people died in car crashes (and almost the same number deaths from guns, but that’s another discussion). We have normalized car-related deaths as built-in to our dependence on driving.  The US can do so much better, and things are beginning to change -very gradually. It takes time to change a culture. Cities like Asbury Park are making strides to create streets that are safe for everyone, especially the most vulnerable – walking, riding bikes, pushing strollers, navigating wheelchairs, and yes, scooters too. (Check out scooter education on Sunday 9/29!)  Watch for continued improvements to infrastructure all over Asbury Park with the goal is to increase availability, convenience, and safety of micro mobility, and reduce car dependency, as it becomes less convenient and less desirable to drive.

 

Cyclist Deaths Are Exploding Because U.S. Cities Are Car-Friendly Death Traps

Bike-related fatalities are up 25 percent across the U.S. since 2010.

 

By Jada Butler; illustrated by Hunter French
Sep 6 2019

In 2019, more and more cities across America are encouraging their residents to commute by bicycle. Cycling, of course, is good for the environment in terms of reducing pollution from car-dominant streets, and it’s a healthier way to travel.

But cities gaining new cyclists are quickly, tragically finding that they do not have the proper infrastructure to keep them safe. Cyclist fatalities have gone up 25 percent across the U.S. since 2010, and up 10 percent in 2018 itself, while all other traffic fatalities have decreased.

Read more…

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35e9p/cyclist-bike-deaths-are-exploding-because-us-cities-are-car-friendly-death-traps?utm_campaign=sharebutton